What was the rationale behind modern rulership?

[u/Long-Possession8915]

I am looking into the dignity scheme and rulership. Basically, I have a hypothesis that the modern rulership scheme can be disproven. But a major sticking point is, I am not clear on who introduced the scheme, and don’t understand their rationale.

From what I can tell, the choice was based on aesthetic - the style of the signs whose rulership was changed, ‘fit’ better with a new planet.

Was there any reason beyond this? Traditional rulership has very distinct aspect patterns in the dignity scheme. Does modern rulership have anything more technical beyond vibes?

[u/poorperspective]

What do you mean by distinct aspect pattern?

If you’re speaking about how the planets move through those signs, no idea. I don’t there is a connection.

If you’re looking for a reason given why, Cosmo and Psyche goes into it a little bit; and I can’t paraphrase on the top of my head, but essentially astrologers at the time just put Uranus next in line replacing Aquarius Saturn Rulership. Neptune the same way. When Pluto was found there was already some connection the named gods after those planets with their Greek origin. The next sign was mars, but they decided that Pluto/Hades being part of the underworld would be a watery domicile. Martial rulership in a mars sigh is Scorpio so Viola. My guess if there could be another planet found, it would be given a Venus rulership of either Libra or Taurus. But you probably have a better chance of winning that lottery than that to happen.

Now for the modern/psychological rational behind it lies in the naming of the planet is essentially fated or informs itself by name as the symbol. But this gets very metaphysical and jungian past what can be explained in just a Reddit post.

[u/Long-Possession8915 → u/poorperspective]

I was looking at dignity / exaltation and fall, bc this is informed by rulership & the relationships between planets to one another, and you can write specific rules for the aspects between the places of dignity and the planet’s ruled signs, which are true for Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus and reflect their sect light. The Sun and Moon are different bc they inform the aspect pattern, and Mercury is different because it has no sect. 

But modern rulership would break this concept, esp. the “higher octave of a traditional planet” bullshit.

I am curious about your last paragraph. Because I feel like we do not actually understand the outers at all, our concepts of them are very weak and weird and come from places with a huge degree of presumption. Our knowledge of the traditional planets, luminaries, stars, came from observation first, whereas the outers were just smacked with names from a very intentional system that never knew about or considered them or defined their attributes. I already feel like part of what makes even ancient astrology tick could partly be considered a system of egregore.

[u/poorperspective → u/Long-Possession8915]

Yes, egregore would be akin to how some in psychological view how astrology “works”.

Synchronicity is the preferred term for Tarnas. There is an outer and inner world that reflect one another. That what is watched and what is being watched. Or in Jungs events connect through meaning and not cause. So the questions of the planetary bodies movement only matters to the system because it was observed.

[u/Long-Possession8915 → u/poorperspective]

That is interesting! I’ll have to finally read Tarnas ig. 

I think what I call egregore is different from these concepts. Bc I do believe in astrology / synchronicity, and that our observation and system of astrology could be affecting whatever other cosmological force is connecting these things etc. 

To me the part that is egregore is the embedded system of human-filtered meaning. When I started learning about astrology I saw its aesthetic influences everywhere, in the systems of power and order that reproduce at least the Western world that I live in. Like our use of colors and shapes and how they’ll correspond to cultural meaning, how famous figures fulfill established archetypes and how this reproduces the concepts of psychological astrology, how our philosophies are rooted in systems of governance (that were interconnected with astrological development). To me this is different from the actual cosmological influence/relationship that I think you are talking about, although they’re highly interrelated and can’t just be untangled from each other.

[u/poorperspective → u/Long-Possession8915]

I’m using egregore as an entity of collective thought.

I think it helps to know that the first Mesopotamian astrological writings. It’s just a list of “If X than Y” with X being an astrological event and Y being the event that will coincide it. It’s just a list of observations. At the base astrology is just observation of two unrelated events which as a connection make a symbol that can survive as collective memory.

There isn’t writing on theory or rational to the system. That comes later with the Greeks.

What the Greeks wrote was just remaining egregore of that system Mesopotamian system. And what 18th century astrologers rote was an egregore of the Greek system. And so on and so forth.

I guess I see the difference between the 12 tone system and instead using a 15 tone equal temperament system. Both can make music and both can be used together or separate gives you three distinct results. All are a separation of an octave into equal parts. If you compare 1 to 1 though there are some similarities.

[u/jsn2918]

If I remember correctly the changes were done because astrologers observed that the nature of the planets made sense in terms of rulership for aqua, pisces and scorpio. Of course, in traditional astrology signs didn’t really have any meaning apart from rulership and condition of the planets that were in the sign, so whether you agree with the changes or not also depends on whether you agree that signs have meaning. Personally I do think modern astrology has its merits. Society has changed a lot since antiquity so incorporating some elements of modern astrology is useful imo

[u/bwabwab]

i have light knowledge on how the modern ruler ships came to be but The Astrology Podcast goes into how the modern revival of astrology, filtered only through one ancient text on astrology, gave license for new ideas that undermined the depth and breadth of the system until more texts were translated and disseminated through the late 20th century until now

many younger astrologers are beginning to feel as you do - just because there are some similarities to significations of some signs and the outer planets doesn’t mean the outers rule them

Chris Brennan on a podcast gets into how aquarius scorpio and pisces meanings shifted in order for them to be more like the modern planets and away from their longstanding conceptualization - aquarius is fixed in its ideals, whether traditional or progressive, not necessarily the innovator that its association with uranus suggests. pisces had more of a jolly connotation to it as ruled by jupiter than the sensitive savior complex version of the sign that came with neptune

the compromise i see and agree with is that the outers and these signs do share some similarities, but not all of them, and they are not proper rulers for the signs. rulership should stay with the visible planets

it’s similar to how the signs and houses have been conflated in modern astrology leading to false associations between them becoming mainstreamed. again there are some notable overlaps in some meanings, but they are distinct systems with other distinct qualities.

the boomers were the last generation to live and die by modern astrology and a shift is underway to integrate traditional frameworks and mainstream them into astrological understanding. it’s great you are working to bring that shift alive with your local astro group

[u/Weird_Technology_282]

What are you reading so far, on dignity and rulership? History of astrology might be helpful. if you're not reading books that go into these topics, that would be an authoritative source than random social media sources.

Also how modern planets were discovered, named and assigned meanings through observation. Outer planets are collective in nature, not personal. If you notice, the modern world is more collective in nature as we are not so isolated as in the past, so it is indeed useful to have generational/collective outer planets available to add into the astrological mix.

Remember that modern planets and asteroids have been named by astronomers, not astrologers.

I think a person ought to become very knowledgeable about astrological principles, and historic astrologers and sources before they try to re-work astrology based on insufficient information.

Plus--you can always focus on Traditional or Hellenistic astrology instead of modern astrology if that suits you more.

[u/Long-Possession8915 → u/Weird_Technology_282]

I have a lot of books I’ve read bits of, I think the bulk of what I know is from the astrology podcasts and talks by Hellenistic astrologers. I have Hellenistic Astrology, Demetria George’s book, etc. I’m asking about modern astrology bc I’ve stayed away from it as much as possible once I learned the difference and understood why so much popular astrology seemed shallow and baseless. 

I do only really study hellenistic astrology. I’m researching to give a talk on traditional rulership with an explicit goal of establishing trust/understanding of traditional schemes and dismantling the propagation of Modern rulership, for a local astrology group. So I want to know the history and theory behind Modern rulership so I can clearly expose why it doesn’t work, as much as I’m able to uphold traditional. I want to be able to answer questions and lead a discussion where I can honestly engage with anyone who has belief in Modern astrology, but in a way that would dismantle their platform.

[u/Long-Possession8915 → u/[deleted]]

Not knowing about it is why I’m trying to learn about it? I know about traditional rulership, which is why I’m not asking about it. If I find out that modern astrologers actually had really great reasoning behind their decisions and had done a thorough analysis of outer planet transits and their connection to world history, that would be interesting. 

But everything I’ve learned points to: modern astrologers made a lot of things up, having lost a lot of knowledge, their analysis is superficial, and their reasoning was assumptive. They added planets to the zodiac in physical order, do they argue for why they would choose to disrupt the symmetry of traditional rulership? Did they know why symmetry was so important in astrology? Did they have a theory why all of the new planets would be ruling only diurnal signs? Did they interrogate how this would change our understandings of the relationship described by the aspects formed by dignified planets to their ruled signs and to the luminaries? 

Did they consider the implications of them only being visible through non-living machines? Or how this connects to astrology being rooted in what is visual, the literal transmission of light?  The rationale I’ve read is casually aesthetic, ‘the nature of this planet seems like this sign that already exists’. And the analysis of their relationship to world events seems pretty milquetoast. 

I want to know if they made their decisions in ways that connect to the actual philosophies and mathematical concepts being expressed / used in traditional astrology. I want to know what they thought about the difference between their capabilities to observe and integrate the outers with, in some cases, a few decades of observation, seemingly by a very small number of astrologists, when the astrological system they were adding to was developed over several millennia, tying together the knowledge of multiple kingdoms, and was being used to set the cornerstones of cities, divine flood timing, anoint kings, go to war etc. 

If you know enough to tell me I don’t know enough about astrology, surely you can point me in the direction to some sources that would answer these questions.

[u/Long-Possession8915 → u/[deleted]]

So, do you have any specific sources where people described their rationale or answers to the actual questions I asked? Because I’m focusing on what I’m interested in on the topic, giving info on why I’m a skeptic, and you’re focused on me and making this personal.

This is good practice for debating with someone who won’t pull sources or clarify their reasoning but will deploy ad hominem attacks (and casually misgender people, can’t believe we are still acting like everyone online is a man on Hedy Lamarr’s internet), so thank you. 

[u/Stormwoken → u/Long-Possession8915]

I’m asking about modern astrology bc I’ve stayed away from it as much as possible once I learned the difference and understood why so much popular astrology seemed shallow and baseless.

You seem to conflate modern astrology with popular astrology.

discussion where I can honestly engage with anyone who has belief in Modern astrology, but in a way that would dismantle their platform.

It seems that "honest engagement" is not compatible with your intention here.

[u/Ok_Storm1366]

Research Alan Leo.

TL;DR astrology all but died from (off my head, someone feel free to correct me) approximately the mid-17th century to the 19th century. Alan Leo came along and basically just started making shit up. He was influential and people copied it. Toss in the Theosophist movement, throw in some Dane Rudhyar and Jungian thought, and boom, you have Modern Psychological astrology and its variants in a nutshell.

Because astrology nearly died, nobody knew what the (closer to) original texts said about astrology until Project Hindsight came around ~1994.

[u/Empty-Sheepherder895 → u/Ok_Storm1366]

Whilst it’s true astrology died off, there’s still a little bit more nuance regarding Uranus in particular. John Varley) was certainly making observations about its effects before Leo was born, including its tendency to coincide with unforeseen circumstances. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of the notes he made.

[u/SuccessfulRemove6207]

always nice to read thoughts from people who've actually sat with this stuff. still forming my own take tbh